


A Good Alpha

by sensitive_satan



Series: Bucky's Pack [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Ancient Alpha Strength, Bonding, F/M, Female Bucky Barnes, Growing Up, Howard Stark's Character Development, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Omega Steve Rogers, Pack Dynamics, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, but Bucky's just gonna fuck them up cos she's stronger than god, look being a female alpha is gonna be a health hazard in the military
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29901228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitive_satan/pseuds/sensitive_satan
Summary: Female alphas are an aberration.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Bucky's Pack [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2198580
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	A Good Alpha

**Author's Note:**

> So in this universe the average alpha is twice as strong as a beta, but there are genetic throwback alphas who are like a rare unicorn with the strength of five alphas.
> 
> Bucky happens to be one of those alphas.

Joanna is seven-years-old when one of the local Catholic nuns calls her an aberration after she helps the old lady pick up a bunch of scattered sheet music outside one of the Catholic churches. She knew immediately that it was some kinda insult from the way it was said. Bucky's not sure if its on account of her being Jewish or if it stems from her being a female alpha. Usually when people have a problem with her it's for one or the other. She doesn't really remember asking her Mom about it, but something in her brain got triggered and she'll carry the memory of her mother crying and telling her she was beautiful for the rest of her days.

  
Joanna hadn't particularly cared a whole lot, not until she ran across a some scrawny kid getting beat up in an alleyway for being a freak. 

  
She's able to send the other boys packing but they call her a freak too. The taller one the once who's gonna have one hell of shiner- a quite possibly vision problems for the rest of his life- come morning says they're both better off dead than breathing.

  
Which seems… Harsh.

  
Joanna might not understand why she's an aberration to the God the Catholics pray to, but she's aware that she's different; most kids don't have to pull their punches, much less little girls.

  
Having that ancient alpha strength is supposed to be a blessing but it feels more like a curse sometimes because it feels like all she ever does is break things. Mr. Wallaby the owner of the cornerstone two blocks from her house has the same strength and has given her a bit of advice but the consideration involved it hard for a seven-year-old to swallow.

  
“I had 'em on the ropes,” the kid panted. He was covered in mud and his poor landing hand broken his nose.

  
“No you didn't,” At seven-years-old Joanna- or Bucky to her friends- has no tact.

  
“You're that affa girl who broke Jimmy's bat!” the kid realized.

  
“Yeah,” she agreed wearily. That particular stunt had not made her popular with the local kids.

  
‘’'m Steve, Steve Rogers.”

  
“Bucky,” she said simply,” You got somewhere you can get your nose fixed?”

  
It's right then between all the mixing and fading beta scents of the other boys that she realized Steve has no scent- not one she can discern- she can only smell blood.

  
“You got no scent?” She asked dumbly before he can answer her previous question.

  
Steve tenses up real bad and she regrets asking.

  
“Sorry, I just didn't know that was possible. Are you alright?” She tried to make amends.

  
“'m a freak. Too sick too often to have a scent,” Steve says defensively.

  
Something happens inside her when she hears him call himself a freak and Bucky decides she's not gonna tolerate. Bucky understands why she might be a freak or an aberration (whatever that word really means) but she doesn't see why Steve's one too.

  
“You're not a freak,” she insisted stubbornly, “Your nose. Got someone who can fix it?”

  
*****

Three weeks into the glorious friendship between Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers, they almost fall apart.

  
It turned out they didn't live that far from each other and Steve's Ma is a real nice lady. Bucky’s been educated on the Null, the people too sick for a presentation, and she cheerfully starts threatening to beat up anyone who says the word Null at Steve like it’s something bad. 

  
It’s a Thursday afternoon and they’re in Steve's kitchen about to share an apple Steve's Ma, Sarah, sliced up for them when it happens: Steve rolls up his right sleeve revealing a mottled bruise nearly expansing his whole forearm.

  
Sarah and Bucky both stare numbly at it before Steve realized what he'd inadvertently revealed and pushed his sleeve back up.

  
“It's nothing Buck,” he said sternly turning slightly to face her so she knows he’s serious. There’s an icy inferno flaring up in his blue eyes just daring her to challenge him, “It don't hurt no more.”

  
Suddenly all the times she offered to help with her sisters and the subtle way her mom would distract her all click into place. She can't ever recall a time she's ever been left alone with her sisters and _that’s weird_ , she realizes. Why had she never noticed that? She looks at Steve’s covered arm and dimly thinks of every time she's touched Steve and can't place when she could have touched him too hard to give him that awful bruise. _Are there other bruises?_

  
Bucky viciously wished she didn't exist and when nothing happened to immediately grant that wish, She bolted out of the small apartment. 

  
*****

The thing is there's this couple that lives next door to the Barnes, Mary and Walter, who without fail at least every three months- sometimes more often- keep the entire Barnes family up all night with their fighting. Mary covers up bruises and will smell real bitter to Bucky for weeks at a time- which makes Bucky feel real twitchy- until Walter comes back reeking of what Bucky's deduced is an omega in heat. It's never the same omega and for some reason Mary doesn't seem to care. She always takes him back.

  
Bucky resents them both. Walter for being so awful and Mary for always taking him back.

  
Bucky's Ma told her it wasn't so simple with mated omegas but Bucky didn't really get why. Both her parents are betas so Bucky figures she probably has the right of it and they don't know what they're talking about.

  
Steve's bruise and Bucky's overworked mom bring her back to Mr. Wallaby's door.

  
He's got an omega and two girls himself and Bucky can't recall any sort of mark or smell of bitterness from the Wallaby's. So her feet find her way to the back of the cornerstone where Mr. Wallaby is unloading crates of fruit. His arms are currently free so she barrels into him without care and Mr. Wallaby hardly stumbles.

“It's because you're a good alpha, Joanna,” Mr. Wallaby insists, after he wrings out the whole story from her, “You want to take care of your Pack.”

  
Bucky cringes a bit at the outdated word. Nobody has a _Pack_ these days. Packs are Shifter nonsense.

  
“Nobody's got a Pack,” she denied.

  
“I have a Pack,” Mr. Wallaby corrected her, “And so do you. Alpha's like us, Joanna, are just built differently- we need a Pack and we need to fix things that are wrong- we can't rest until it's fixed.”

  
“You'll never settle until you learn to control your strength,” He continued sagely.

  
Bucky can already feel the tears of frustration welling up behind her eyes. She's **tried** controlling it. She even thought she had a pretty good handle on it but clearly she hadn't. Steve pulling up his sleeve to reveal that mottled, half-healed bruise keeps replaying in her mind. Her parents watchful eyes and careful affection.

  
Her Ma is pregnant at the moment, the baby isn't due for months but Bucky's willing to bet she won't be able to hold the baby again. Bucky wonders darkly if Becca will get to hold the baby; Becca's probably big enough now to support a baby with out running the risk of crushing said baby.

  
Bucky hates her strength. It’s a curse.

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm on the fence about pre-war Stucky or mid-war Stucky. What do ya'll think?


End file.
